Gardening products I would buy if I wasn’t so cheap
15.9 years ago cheap, compost, germination, indoor seed starting, tomato
Today I got my Gardener’s Supply Companycatalog, this particular catalog is dedicated to items to assist you with your gardening habit. You should be able to guess from this site I do my best to resist buying anything for the garden I absolutely need, otherwise I make a cheaper alternative. Well the point of this post is to show what I would like to get if I wasn’t as disciplined.
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They sell these Accelerated Propagation System (APS) seed starting kits which have all the basics you expect from a seed starting kits you would find at your local garden store. They include 6 to 40 cells to plant seedlings and a clear plastic dome to help raise the humidity to provide extra moisture for the tender seedlings. The bonus in this setup is it also contains a reservoir which holds enough water to keep them moist for up to a week. With the help of an elevated platform and capillary matting provides just the right amount of water to your plants. At just $19.95 for the 40 and 24 cells sizes this is one purchase I am still considering, since I never have finished my automatic watering system on my computerized grow box and this makes much better use of space than my plastic tub, newspaper pots, and daily watering method I am doing now. |
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Eco-Friendly Cowpots basically planting pots made as a byproduct of processing cow poo. The poo is dried, composted and mixed with natural fibers creating a completely biodegradable pot which holds up well during growth and transplanting but biodegrades in the soil after several weeks. I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs which went through the whole process and it was very interesting and environmentally conscience but, unfortunately due to the price tag (about $1 a pot) these are a little over my budget since my newspaper pots are free. |
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Gardener’s Revolution Planter – You have probably seen something similar advertised between gardening shows on HGTV (Topsy Turvy) , I know my daughter has and has been talking about growing tomatoes upside down for some time now. She even on her own came up with a ingenious design to do this (not 5 gallon bucket) which I will write-up when we get around to that project. In case you were wondering the improvement this year (or compared to the TV advertisement) it is the addition of a 1 gallon water reservoir which slowly releases water to the plant as neededSelf watering must be a big seller this year since there are also many other variances of self watering pots in many shapes and sizes with designs similar to the original (to my knowledge) the EarthBox. |
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Now definitely in the gadget department the Push-Button Kitchen Scrap Composter can take your everyday kitchen scraps and turn them into compost in less than 11 days. The concept on this one is pretty simple:Food + Heat + Spinning = Compost
Of course it crossed my mind of creating something similar myself, but probably would end up burning down the house or if I was lucky just launch partially composted food across the living room at 50 miles per hour. Given the $299 price tag seems like I will be stuck to waiting 3-6 months for my compost to be created. Though it would be much more convenient than walking through the snow to add kitchen scraps to the compost. |
Tags: cheap, compost, garden seeds, growbox, led, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Why should you have a grow box?
15.9 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, seeds
Other than the “Do you really just grow ‘strawberries’ in your grow box?” question. The most common question I have gotten is why exactly do I have a grow box. Hopefully I will be able to answer this question below, as for the first question the answer is yes (without the fingerquotes)
Necessity: I am cheap and don’t want to buy all my plants from local nursery or garden center, but do not have a good location inside my house to grow seedlings with a normal table/shelf light setup. I definitely do not have the space to setup a greenhouse in the backyard. This unfortunately forces me to do my growing in my cold windowless garage. Using a grow box allows me to maintain a safe temperature for my plants no matter what the conditions are outside.
Control: I have nearly complete control of the conditions inside the grow box. I can provide my plants with the perfect temperature, humidity, lights (intensity and wavelength as well as day/night simulation) and even can simulate a slight breeze using a small fan if desired. This gives me many advantages which I would not have even if I could grow indoors. One example of this is growing peppers, which can be fairly difficult in our climate but with some modifications settings in the grow box can create the perfect conditions for it.
Saving Money: Given my options such as the $20 PC Grow Box and my $6 Christmas Light LED Grow Box the cost of entry is pretty low. You do have the expense of lighting the thing but given the 48 watts required for the PC Grow Box and 10 watts of the Christmas Light LED Grow Box even those maintenance costs are reasonable.
Portability: All three of my grow boxes (PC Grow Box, LED Grow Box, Computerized Grow Box) all have a single plug that goes into the outlet and can literally be picked up and moved to another location if needed (try doing that with your greenhouse)
Scalability: Need more space in your grow box? As little as $6 can get you a new one, or $10 worth of lumber can double the size of your existing one (assuming your old lighting can support the space) You are limited to what your creativity can imagine.
Fun: Call me crazy, but I like the idea of tricking my strawberries that it is a nice spring day and get them to start blooming and producing fruit. If all goes well I can move the plants outside during the real spring and get even more harvest while freeing up some space for more plants.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
LED Christmas light grow box
15.9 years ago cheap, cucumbers, indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, wondersoil
I noticed some of my daisies were getting a little leggy so added 60 more LEDs (red) to my LED grow box. This time I was a little less calculated about positioning but still fee like I got a decent pattern going. I also decreased the drill size and didn’t even need to use the hot glue gun.
As you can see from the pictures below the plants (cucumbers, onions, cilantro, purple coneflowers) have a dark green complexion and are less leggy compared to the results I would get from my window sill. The cucumber plants after two weeks have grown up enough to move into the LEDs grow box’s big brother.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
16 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, wondersoil
I have been pretty impressed with the results of the Christmas lights LED grow box so far. I did have some preconceptions that I may need to double the lights or upgrade the LEDs, but so far the plants look healthy without white leggy stems, though still need to wait until the true leaves come in. As you can see in the picture above I have quite a selection of pots reused from previous years. The one exception are the newspaper pots which I discovered last year and am definitely a fan of. You can also see from the gross white stuff that my grow box probably could use a fan or at least prop a corner open.
Here is a picture of one of the cucumber plants up close.
My experiment is being conducted in the LED grow box so for its update, looks like is in the lead but hard to say with just germination occurring.
UPDATES:
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2
Tags: cheap, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Using WonderSoil for seed starting
16 years ago cucumbers, fertilizer, indoor seed starting, vermicomposting, wondersoil
I had great results using coconut coir last growing season it was great to work with, retained water great for young seedlings, and was economically priced. The only challenge was actually finding some to use this year. No luck in local stores, last year I only could find a single block in one hardware store. Online there are plenty of locations that sell them, but unless you have a need for a couple metric tons, the cost of shipping can be more than the the product itself.
Finally, I found a solution to my problem WonderSoil
- Shake, Water, and Plant — 1/2 inch mini wafers that can be added to any of your pots. In my case I underestimated the expansion of these little things and made a little mess and it overflowed on my table (apparently 3 was the magic number not 4)
- The Tube — There are larger wafers made specifically for 4 inch pots, in my case this would be newspaper pots
- Reground Wafers — This is basically a loose version available in 2 or 5 lb bags. This is a more economical option which I will plan on using when doing larger seed trays.
For Christmas I got indoor seed starting kit which came with pots/seeds/peat pellets. I decided this would be a great opportunity to do a little side by side comparison. From the start I was WonderSoil seemed like the obvious winner. After adding a little water, it fully expanded in just a few seconds and was fluffy and ready for me to drop a seed in, the peat was a swampy mess.
Peat pellets Left, WonderSoil Right
After a few minutes and fluffing with a fork the peat was ready to planting. I put cucumber seeds in both peat and WonderSoil pots and I will provide some updates on how things progress on my little experiment.
After the WonderSoil had some time to settle in my cheap LED grow box I did see some strange formations appear in the soil.
I little concerned I went back to their product and I believe this is their “water saving polymers” in action which I would assume is some sort of gel crystal which is supposed to save up to 50% water. They also boast about use of worm castings which I am definitely a fan of as well as addition of a balance of various micronutrients.
I will have to wait and see if the product produces as well as it claims, but I must say I am definitely impressed at this point and have high hopes for WonderSoil for this years seedlings.
UPDATES:
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1 (WonderSoil)
Tags: cheap, compost, garden seeds, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables, worms
Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers for seed starting/hydroponics
16 years ago indoor seed starting
Many times I see some packaging and eventually get an idea how I can reuse it with some minor modifications for starting seeds or some other purpose in the garden. I had one of these moment as soon as I opened my Healthy Choice General Tso’s Spicy Chicken Café Steamer In case anyone is wondering what the purpose of this new packaging is, I could try to explain it but I will allow their marketing department do it for me:
“Our innovative product line utilizes a new and unique microwave Steam Cookerâ„¢–so you can lock in all the naturally fresh flavors of restaurant-inspired meals by steaming them yourself. With new Healthy Choice Café Steamers, vegetables stay bright and crisp, meat and seafood are juicy and tender, rice is moist and fluffy, and pasta is firm.”
After being delighted in the science of their frozen food steaming technology, I discovered I could easily repurpose the packaging completely as-is.
My first initial thought was to use this for starting seeds since it is the perfect size and depth for seeds starts before requiring their first transplant. As an added bonus they already have great drainage holes and even a reservoir in case of excess watering or allowing for wicking if I am going to be away from my seedlings a couple days.
My second thought was hydroponics, which is the process of growing vegetables without using soil. The basic idea is the plant gets all it needs from the nutrient solution which is applied always keeping the roots wet in the preferred growing medium. By adding a growing medium such as coconut fiber or Rockwool, adding some nutrient solution and an air bubbler to the bottom portion of this tray you have a cheap hydroponic system. It is even big enough to support at least three small plants.
With either option the removal tray is also easily removable incase of overwatering or to change nutrient solution with very little disturbance to the plant(s).
One other benefit use is actually consuming the contents (preferable before used for gardening) which I did try and though the packaging has some interesting uses after you eat it, the meal tastes just about as bad as any other TV dinner I have eaten.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables
